The Canadian Cancer Society office in Chatham is no more.
Sara Oates, executive vice president of finance and operations for the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS), confirmed to Blackburn News on Wednesday that the local office recently closed in order to shift more operations online.
Like many organizations and businesses, Oates said the pandemic has been hard on the CCS and its fundraising revenues have taken a big hit. As a result, the CCS is undergoing a "transformational change" and focusing more on offering virtual support to cancer patients.
According to Oates, the move to go online was in the works before the pandemic. However, as COVID-19 forced offices to temporarily close and employees worked from home, Oates said the pandemic showed them how much could be done virtually.
"What we're doing is we're reimagining everything that we do, including how we serve Canadians with our support program, how we fundraise and also how we work," Oates said. "Like a lot of other organizations around the world, we have been leveraging digital technology to reach more people and expand access to our programs and events to all Canadians, regardless of where they live."
Due to the pandemic and lost revenues, Oates added that the CCS has had to lay off several workers across the country.
Chatham-Kent is not alone when it comes to the CCS office being closed. Oates said before the pandemic, there were 68 offices across Canada. In the CCS's fiscal year, 23 offices will be closed, with more closing in the months and years to come.
Oates said the closures will also allow the organization to spend less on administrative costs and put more money directly towards helping Canadians with cancer.
Although losing physical locations, Oates said the CCS remains committed to serving as many people as possible.
"What we're trying to do is ensure that access to services and information which was previously supported through those local offices, is being matched and even enhanced through different approaches," she explained.
An example of this, according to Oates, is expanding people's access to live, trained staff members through the CCS helpline and live chats on the organization's website.
Oates added that the CCS is also focusing on enhancing the functionality of the website to ensure it's easy to use.
"We're in the middle of a really big redesign of our website so that it remains as accessible to as many people as possible," she said. "Our focus is really what we call user-centric so that as many people as possible find it easy to use and easy to access the services available to them."
In addition, Oates said the organization will still maintain a heavy focus on welcoming volunteers as it moves online.
"Our volunteer base is so important to us," she said. "We started as a community-based organization and that's a very important task in the work that we do. The ability to engage with volunteers has obviously changed over the pandemic... but we are working hard to stay engaged with those volunteers, provide them with information and keep them connected."
